With existing technology, there are two ways for sharing a file on a local terminal for browsing by other terminals.
One method is to use a data cable in conjunction with a data synchronizing application. In particular, the files on each terminal are synchronized onto a personal computer (PC) installed with the data-synchronizing application. Other terminals can then copy the file from the PC.
The other method is to use a server with a data synchronizing application. When performing server-assisted file sharing, the following can be performed: one of the terminals (e.g., terminal 1) transmits a file to the server, the server then notifies the other terminals (e.g., terminals 2-5), as illustrated in FIG. 1.
The file-sharing method illustrated in FIG. 1 can be relatively stable in achieving data sharing among the terminals. But because it requires going through the server, the data sharing cannot be guaranteed to take place in real-time. In addition, this method also requires support of the server. Thus, a user would not be able to use this method without Internet connection. This reliance on network connectivity can make this data-sharing method relatively costly to implement.